The hellish summer may have prompted some planting delays, but many Texas vegetable gardeners say they'll be growing their fall favorites. They know the milder season brings more flavorful crops - and fewer pests.

We asked gardeners to share stories about their fall favorites. Here's what several had to say:

A young start

Tad Hruska, 3, already knows food doesn't just come from the store.

"Tad likes to pick some things more than eat them, but we like to expose him to vegetable gardening," says his mom, architect Rame Hruska. "As an infant, he ate everything. Now he's a bit more picky."

But he loves cucumbers right out of the garden. And he likes broccoli.

She hopes their spring-planted 'Matt's Wild' cherry tomatoes will hang on as in past years and produce fall harvests. Native to Mexico, the tiny tomatoes are super sweet, and neighboring kids eat them like candy.

Meanwhile, she and husband Russell Hruska, also an architect, will replenish the soil and plant cool-season vegetables. They'll work in compost from home bins to get collards, Brussels sprouts, Italian dandelion greens and arugula off to a good start. Their 4-by-12-foot raised beds also have room to sow carrots, a favorite of Tad's. He'll take them cooked or raw, Rame says.

She grew up gardening in Washington State, and growing vegetables in Texas has been a huge learning curve. But there is one constant.

"It makes sense to have the best soil you can," she says.

Stamp of approval

Last fall, Cheryl Sanford sowed five small rows of carrots, her first go with this root crop. It won't be her last.

Sanford watered the seed daily for two weeks, then twice a week. In January, she had carrots galore. When she was invited to a Super Bowl party, she grabbed a bunch, tied them with a gold ribbon (in honor of the Pittsburgh Steelers) and presented them as a hostess gift. Two weeks later, the delighted hostess sent a very fine thank-you note - along with a sheet of U.S. postage stamps bearing a photo of Sanford's carrots. (You can turn photos into stamps at websites such as www.stamps.com and www.zazzle.com.)

"We all enjoyed the carrots from the garden until nearly May," Sanford says. "They taste so much better than the carrots from the store."

Leafy beauties

Swiss chard won its place in fall flower beds thanks to its highly ornamental leaves. But many gardeners like its good taste as well as its good looks.

Sylvia Dekmezian says her Swiss chard has never disappointed in 10 years. Sharing bountiful harvests with friends and family has become a tradition.

'Bright Lights,' 'Ruby Red' and 'Magenta Sunset' varieties thrive and create a rainbow of colors in her garden when surrounding plants rest.

"They are extremely easy to grow from seeds, have an extended season and a sweet flavor," she says.

Dekmezian tosses seedlings or thinnings into salads, uses leaves in multiple dishes and the stems in her favorite side dish with tahini sauce.

"The more you cut the leaves, the more you get, and there's hardly any problem with unwanted pests," she says.

"I delight in being able to pick tender young leaves of any of these kinds of lettuce to put in our family's wilted leaf salad (lettuce, bacon, sour cream, vinegar, and salt and pepper), a recipe handed down by my Czech mother," she says.

Baby bok choy, baby mesclun and kale are Margie Beegle's favorite fall veggies, all displayed in raised beds in her urban front yard garden in Montrose. This spring, heirloom tomatoes were among the pretty edibles that earned her "Yard of the Month" honors.

Learning to love broccoli

After living in Texas more than 20 years, Suzanne Gruber and her husband planted their first fall garden in Fulshear last year. Lettuces, arugula, cauliflower, kale, cabbages and radishes filled raised beds. But broccoli proved to be the pièce de résistance.

"Before growing and tasting my own broccoli right out of the garden, I always felt that it was one of those necessary vegetables: the kind that's good for you, but not one of my favorites," she says. "Now, I can't wait to plant and harvest this year's crop. I think even former President Bush (No. 41) would enjoy eating broccoli if he were able to try some from my garden."

Enough for everybody

"We have had fabulous success in our fall garden with broccoli and cauliflower, and now devote most of our limited backyard space to these two veggies," Robin Willis says.

She sets transplants out in September, encouraging them with a heavy dose of organic fertilizer, some watering until they're well-established and a thick layer of hardwood mulch.

"Then all we have to do is identify which of our friends like to eat these veggies, because we cannot begin to consume what we grow," she says. "One of our outrageous, oversize cauliflowers makes 10-12 individual servings, and the broccoli heads weigh in at 2 pounds plus."

Sweet snap peas

Houston Urban GardenerLaurel Smith has begun sowing sugar snap pea seeds every six weeks for a constant supply of this favorite through the cool months. Sugar snap peas are so sweet, they're almost like candy, she says.

"Sugar snap peas don't require shelling, so they're my kind of minimal-fuss veggie," she says. "They can be eaten raw in salads or stir-fried with mushrooms and other vegetables. There are no wrong ways to fix them."

Easy-to-grow, nutritious arugula also tops her list. She loves the nutty, sharp taste and uses the leaves like lettuce in sandwiches and in tossed green salads, and she prepares it wilted in a pasta topping.

Farm fresh

Vegetables have always been a part of life for longtime Baytown gardener Lois Hofmann. She grew up on a New York farm. Her husband is a "city boy" whose family grew roses and other flowers. When the couple moved to Baytown 40 years ago, they combined their talents in a large garden.

Last summer, they created a small, manageable kitchen garden. They're Swiss chard fans. They say an assortment of herbs and greens, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, onions and other root crops are also outstanding in the fall-winter garden.

Thanks to the bunnies

Ten years after Evelyn Saugier and her husband, Kent, moved from New Jersey, they realized the fall garden is an option in Texas. Although they dutifully plant spring crops, for her, the fall garden is the way to go. No bugs, less heat and harvests well into spring.

In October, the couple will plant lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, sugar snap peas and perhaps beets. Broccoli and cabbage also may be in the mix.

The Saugiers are composters, but Evelyn says their best gardening experience may have been converting a former bunny hutch into a boxed garden.